Offshore Call Center Locks Down Thousands of Linux Desktops

Case Study
Leading Global Financial Services Company
Offshore Call Center Locks Down

Thousands of Linux Desktops
INDUSTRY
“Unfortunately, as our operation grew, enforcing even simple
Financial Services
security policies in an environment of multiple NIS domains
and locally managed machines became painful to accomplish.
COMPANY PROFILE
We really needed a better way.” — Chief Security Information
This leading global financial
services firm operates with more Officer.
than 150,000 employees in over 50
countries. The Customer Service
division alone operates some Introduction
15,000 desktop workstations.
This leading financial services company was operating a customer service
BUSINESS SITUATION call center in India. The desktop workstations ran SUSE Enterprise Linux,
The Customer Service division’s which the company found to be a cost-effective choice for supporting its
offshore call center had grown to call center workers. As the size of the operation grew to more than 5,000
over 5,000 Linux desktops that desktops, however, it became difficult to manage users and security on that
needed to be better managed and
secured. many Linux machines. By migrating the workstations from multiple NIS
domains to a consolidated system of identity management based on
SOLUTION Microsoft Active Directory and Likewise Enterprise, the call center became
The company was able to lock able to enforce security policies across the whole network and provision
down all the call center desktops workstations based on user roles, all through a centrally administered
and centrally enforce uniform
security policies using Microsoft
directory service.
Active Directory and Likewise
Enterprise.
BENEFITS
The company established a
standardized set of policies for
different user roles and is now able
to provision these accounts
through a central directory service
that manages all user identities.
Copyright © 2008 Likewise Software. All rights reserved. 2.5.2008. 1

Case Study
Offshore Call Center Locks Down Thousands of Linux Desktops
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Copyright © 2008 Likewise Software. All rights reserved. 2

Case Study
Table of Contents
Situation.................................................................................................. 4
Solution................................................................................................... 5
Benefits ................................................................................................... 6
For More Information ............................................................................. 6

Case Study
Situation
Call center operations pose a greater security concern in financial
services than in some other industries, because the subject matter of the
calls is typically sensitive information. That’s why this company was
frustrated by the obstacles it faced in implementing standard security
policies across the thousands of Linux machines used by its call center
personnel.
“The larger our operation grew, the more important it became to

implement standard security policies across all our workstations,” said
the chief security information officer. “We needed to enforce single
usernames, strong passwords, locking screensavers — that kind of
thing. Unfortunately, as our operation grew, enforcing even simple
security policies in an environment of multiple NIS domains and locally
managed machines became painful to accomplish.”
Because authentication was being handled locally on the Linux

machines, there was no easy way for the IT department to verify that any
security policies were being followed. The company lacked the kind of
central user account management for its Linux fleet that Active Directory
typically provides for a Windows shop.
In addition, the management of new hires, departures, and changing job

roles had become a challenge. A single user might need to be
provisioned on one or two different machines locally, one or more NIS
domains, plus an Active Directory account. High turnover rates at the call
center just made the problem worse. “We needed to simplify the process.
We had people spending all their time doing nothing but setting up new
users and getting rid of old accounts,” the security officer said. “The
amount of work involved every time a new employee replaced an old one
was simply becoming unreasonable.”
Suppose a manager leaves the company, an associate is promoted to

the manager’s position, and a new hire replaces the associate. “We
would typically have to remove accounts and set up new identities
manually on three different machines and two or three different NIS
domains,” the security officer said. “This happened all the time.”

Case Study
Solution
The call center was already using Active Directory for limited purposes,
but had no way to use it for the larger task of managing users on its
thousands of workstations, because Active Directory does not support
Linux machines. But what if Active Directory could be made to support
those Linux machines?
“This was the ‘aha!’ moment for us, when we realized there might be a
way to use Active Directory to solve our problem,” the security officer
“Likewise not only solved our said. “We knew what Active Directory could do, and we thought we knew
Linux desktop security issues, what it could not do. Then we talked to Likewise and realized we could
have the best of both worlds — lean Linux machines and users managed
but also reduced our costs of
by Active Directory.”
managing our 5,000-plus
Linux desktops. We After conducting trials on a limited number of machines and evaluating
the results, the company decided to implement Likewise Enterprise
consolidated multiple NIS
across its whole call center.
domains and scattered
/etc/passwd and group files “Some of us worried about the level of effort that would be involved in
making the transition,” the security officer said. “We had so many local
into a single system that’s a
/etc/passwd and /etc/group files scattered across thousands of
lot easier to manage and machines, and how would we get the info from all our different NIS
secure.” domains consolidated? But it turned out the migration tools and scripting
capabilities of Likewise Enterprise made the transition much easier than
we expected.”
The company now uses Likewise Enterprise to manage all 5,000 of its
call center Linux machines. Each machine has the Likewise Enterprise
Agent installed, which allows it to be joined to Active Directory and
managed from there. Now the call center IT group uses Active Directory
tools, augmented by Likewise extensions, to manage user identities and
establish group policies much as if they were managing Windows
machines.

Case Study
Benefits
The company not only established and enforced single usernames,
strong passwords, locking screensavers and other security policies for its
call center, but it also significantly streamlined administrative processes.
User roles and group access rights are now centrally created and
controlled. New users with specific sets of access rights are created
quickly and easily within Active Directory and the Likewise Enterprise
Management Console. Users can be quickly added, immediately
removed, or their access rights easily modified, all from one central
location.
For More Information

For more information on Likewise or to download a free 30-day trial
version, visit the Likewise web site at http://www.likewisesoftware.com.
For general questions, call (800) 378-1330 or e-mail

info@likewisesoftware.com.
For technical questions or support for the 30-day free trial, email
support@likewisesoftware.com.
ABOUT LIKEWISE
Likewise® Software solutions improve management and interoperability of Windows,
Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix systems with easy-to-use software for cross-platform
identity management.
Likewise provides familiar Windows-based tools for system administrators
to seamlessly integrate Linux and Unix systems into Microsoft Active Directory. This
enables companies with mixed networks to use existing Windows skills and
resources, maximize the value of their Active Directory investment, strengthen the
network security, and lower the total cost of ownership of Linux and Unix servers.
Likewise Software is a Bellevue, WA-based software company funded by leading
venture capital firms Ignition Partners, Intel Capital, and Trinity Ventures. Likewise
has experienced management and engineering teams in place and is led by senior
executives from leading technology companies such as Microsoft, F5 Networks,
EMC and Mercury.

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Case Study

Leading Global Financial Services Company